MEDIA RELEASE: FRIDAY 11 JULY 2008

NEW DIRECTIONS - SEASON 2008

4 PLAYS OVER 4 WEEKS

Over four weeks, New Directions - Season 2008 gives Sydney audiences the chance to experience four exciting new plays from Australia and the UK interpreted by four talented young directors. A provoking, challenging, funny and entertaining look at birth, death and the messy stuff in between: New Directions - Season 2008 is not to be missed.

Play One: 23 - 26 July

Nathan comes on stage - literally: into a specimen jar! He's made a deal with lesbian couple Kay and Beth to father their child. His mother Maggie is horrified; his partner Guy is worried about the added pressures on their already strained relationship; the prospective mums are asking a lot of uncomfortable questions; and Nathan must face difficult truths about both his past and present.

From the writer of Colder (Griffin Stablemates, 2008), this explosive drama explores what hinges the deepest and most intimate human relationships and the way in which people construct identities for themselves.

"Theatrical, layered, dense... Take the plunge and immerse yourself in something quite extraordinary" Stage Left

Play Two: 30 July - 2 August

How do you escape the past? How do you find a balance between independence and commitment? And what can you do when people just make you sick? Thirty-something Lucy is having a hard enough time coping with a high maintenance father and a wild and crazy best friend, but add to that a new but less-than-perfect boyfriend and her growing attraction to a charming and mysterious Kiwi, and suddenly Lucy finds her life spinning out of control.

Check in for this sexy, sassy comedy/drama about big-girls' dilemmas, bad choices, bastard men and the emotional black holes inside us all.

Play Three: 6 - 9 August

Brothers Thom and Gramme are rivals in the ethical murkiness of global capitalism - both up-market and black-market. As they try to negotiate their way through a minefield of family loyalty, medical ethics, sexual fidelity and plain old crime, the outside world steps in to make its own decisions.

An urban political drama with a comic edge that peels back the surface of contemporary life and gives us pause to consider what humanity really means. The Carnivores won the 2005 Griffin Award for New Australian Playwriting.

"Among the select few voices writing for the Australian stage who is politically minded, uncompromising and not averse to risk" Sydney Morning Herald

Play Four: 13 - 16 August

Nobody can ignore the fact that Myra is dying - but in the meantime life goes on. There is heating to be fixed, cats to be fed and the perfect funeral to be planned. While Myra researches bushland burial spots and biodegradable coffins, her husband and two adult daughters are finally forced to communicate with her, and each other, in the face of a heart-wrenching certainty.

Colder Than Here is a tender, funny and unsentimental look at a family facing up to the imminent death of a loved one.

"Far from flinching in the face of death, explores how we might make peace with it" The Guardian